Sweet dreams are made of these...

[thespaceopera]

[ Calibration Rooms ]
( for A-M characters )

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ROOMS BY CHARACTER

A Abigail Hobbs Aiya/Gray Nightingale Adrasteius Anor'thalion Ahsoka Tano Alex Russo Allen Walker Anders Anthony Crowley Asteffiel Axel

B - D Belthazar Spellscry Beverly Crusher Bran Stark Caesar Zeppeli Cayde-6 Cheese Sandwich Clay Terran Coil Cole Davesprite Duke Pantarei

E - I Elecman.exe Elena Gilbert Elize Lutus Felix Harrowgate Fenris Finrod Haruka Tenoh/Sailor Uranus Imperator Furiosa Isabela Issac Lahey

J - M Jade Harley James Barnes/Jim James Barnes/Winter Joseph Joestar Katara Katniss Everdeen/Nova Kirito/Kazuto Kirigaya Kurt Wagner Leanne Loki Maladict(a) Max Caulfield Megaman Mordin Solus

Comments

[electrostatics]

[ This is a familiar environment, and he doesn't even pause to look around; this is something that's very comfortable to him.

Hmm. Megaman still wants to avoid him, right? So maybe he'll head towards the left path first. He looks at the waiting Mr Prog. ]

...Hey.

What's down here?

[recopy]

[Maybe Megaman still does, it's true. Or maybe not so much, in this particular place.....but either way, Elecman makes no move to hail him, and so he remains oblivious to Elecman's presence for now.

The Mr. Prog is definitely more responsive, at least; it perks up and turns to the Navi as he speaks up.]

OH, HELLO! [It's as cheery as a typical Mr. Prog would be, at any rate.] THIS PATH HERE? UP AHEAD IS ACDC SQUARE! LOTS OF FRIENDS LIKE RELAXING THERE. BUT BATTLES ARE NOT PERMITTED, SO PLEASE DON'T START ANY! [The Prog pauses for a moment.] AND DON'T MIND THEM. IT'S A LITTLE EASIER WHEN YOU JUST TRY NOT TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY, YOU KNOW?

[electrostatics]

Try not to take it personally, hmm. Okay.

[ He's going to head off down that left path, then, without another word. He's sure he can handle whatever lies ahead. ]

[recopy]

[The Mr. Prog moves aside agreeably enough as Elecman starts off down the path, and it's a pretty uneventful walk after that. ...Mostly. Has it been a few seconds, or more like half a minute? It's a bit hard to tell just how long the path might have been, for some reason, but then he's on the other side, and another plaza opens up before him.

ACDC Square has a different set of tile pattern, though of course it's still some varying form of blue. It's bigger than the earlier plaza was--and not nearly as empty. In fact, there are a fair number of generic-type NormalNavis wandering around here too, and the warm mumble of absentminded chatter fills the air. A wide yellow BBS board sits in the middle of the square, new messages blinking on its display; and off to the side there's a little stand with a Chip vendor Navi waiting behind it.

Seems like a pretty typical internet Area square, really. Though the NormalNavis all simultaneously look up and stare as Elecman enters the plaza...before they resume milling about seemingly as normal again.]

[electrostatics]

[ Huh.

He has no interest in talking to the NormalNavis, staring or not (though he feels mildly confrontational about it), so he's going to go and look at the BBS board. He wonders what he'll find on it; whatever this is, it's odd. He needs more information. ]

[recopy]

[Oh, he has no interest? But the NormalNavis do have an interest in him, as it quickly turns out. Elecman might attempt to make his way to the BBS board, but he'll find himself waylaid by a NormalNavi on the way there, drifting up to him from the side before he has the chance to get a good look at the contents of the board.]

Hey, hey you, you came from over that way, right? [She's blandly curious, it seems.] Did you see him over there? That blue Navi...

[electrostatics]

What about him? [ He doesn't turn to look at the navi; he resents having his personal space bubble interrupted by anything. And something about the words she says are...familiar. ] He's just walking around by himself. It's not like navis don't do that all the time.

[recopy]

[The Navi seems blandly undeterred by Elecman's refusal to look over, and hums in a blandly neutral sort of way at the reply.]

Oh, sure, but I'm not talking about that. Have you heard, the way he acts sometimes? It's just not natural...

[And, with that bland remark, the Navi wanders off...though another Navi in passing seems to catch the gist of her words, and shakes his head as he walks by:] Right? No need for a Navi to be programmed like that, I say. What's next? Navis that need to eat, too?

They say he's from SciLab, though, can't be surprised... [So chimes another one off to the side.]

I heard somebody saw him cough once. What's that even supposed to do?

There's such a thing as being too human, I think...

[And so the vague warm mumbling in the room starts to solidify, like this, the words getting more discernible. It's not a very pleasant feeling that washes over along with the babble, something detached and rather lonely.

All that aside, Elecman will have to get a bit closer to the BBS board to really get a good look.]

[electrostatics]

[ Loneliness is something he's intimately familiar with. It's never bothered him much, but his operator had always been...

Well.

He tries not to dwell on that, but all this gossip just...irritates him. He's easy to rile, when you press the right buttons. ]

Don't you have anything better to do than say meaningless words? [ His voice is -- aggressive. Don't start fights, whatever. Since when had he ever paid attention to that kind of thing? ] If you don't have anything else to say, shut up.

[recopy]

[ELECMAN NO, REMEMBER WHAT THE MR. PROG SAID......

But, if anybody in the square is aware of a temper being set off, nobody makes any indication of it. The NormalNavis nearby simply glance over and shrug indifferently, and continue to wander on about their vague business, and the words of their chatter retain that half-solidity, keeping that detached cold loneliness in the air.]

But we don't have anything else to say! That's how it is...

It's just odd...that sort of Navi...

[electrostatics]

[ ....Ugh, never mind. Some of the tension goes out of his shoulders when they just repeat what they've been saying. If they're this brainless, then there's no point wasting his energy, right?

Maybe he'll just...look at the BBS board instead. What's on that? ]

[recopy]

[A good plan! Indeed, the closer Elecman gets to the BBS, the quieter and more inaudible the chatter around the square becomes...and, should he close the distance properly, he'll soon find a warm and happy feeling seeping over the cold loneliness from earlier under the yellow light of the board.

There aren't a lot of messages posted here, but all of them are new, the little red unread labels blinking away:]

[NEW] Still waiting :(
[NEW] HEY NETBATTLE REMATCH
[NEW] Ms Yai is concerned
[NEW] Just a reminder
[NEW] Touching base

[All the posts are well within reaching distance.]

[electrostatics]

[ ...That's a nice feeling.

He's not going to go through other people's messages, but he can guess who some of them are from (the capslock he's almost certain he knows the sender of), but...

...It's good to have friends. He never would have guessed that Megaman had to deal with so much of this.

'Don't take it personally.'

He just sighs and turns away from the board, not interested in talking to the chip trader; it'll probably get him more of the same, anyway.

He heads back the way he came, carefully avoiding catching Megaman's attention if he can, and...

There was one path that looked different from the others, right? So he'll take that one. If all else fails, he can fly.

...Probably. ]

[recopy]

[Elecman's efforts seem to succeed, for the most part, or maybe that's just the nature of the room--either way, still unprompted, Megaman continues wandering the plaza oblivious to Elecman's presence as the latter crosses over from one side to the other.

The Mr. Prog standing on the side of the path in question, unaddressed, simply moves aside to allow Elecman through as well. But--oh, it is a pretty narrow path, isn't it? Parts of the purple tile almost seem to be crumbling a away a bit at the edges, not so much from age but from...poor construction and compilation? Maybe. It also feels like an unreasonably long walk, at least for the moment--when he does eventually step off he'll probably be left wondering just how long it really was again. But for now it's more than enough time to notice how the soccerball wallpaper gradually fades out to simple darkness, out in the ether. And, as he walks, Elecman may start to feel a creeping sense of...something uncomfortable. Nervous and anxious.

At length the path does finally open up to yet another plaza, though--this one a bit smaller than the previous two, and still laid in purple tiles. The most distinctive feature of the area is straight ahead, though, where a very tall and wide screen--maybe a computer's screen, of some kind--hangs suspended beyond the plaza, broadcasting nothing but snowy static. The sound of static permeates the air here too, in what would otherwise be silence--there's nobody else here.

But there is a smaller and more immediate screen suspended in the dead center of the plaza too; not a BBS, this time, but some kind of status window. It's a pale green, with lines of pale text visible in the body. But the only line of text readable from this distance is larger, red, and bolded at the very top of the window: ERROR LOG]

[electrostatics]

[ He can feel its instability, in the instinctive sense that all navis have. It doesn't make him feel very well, and the growing sense of nervousness makes him feel like maybe he should go back.

But it's an external source. He pushes it away, bracing himself for whatever comes next, and steps out into something that's apparently suffering some kind of error.

Despite the anxious feeling prickling away at him, he goes forward to inspect the status window. ]

[recopy]

[Up close, the pale text becomes clearer to read--oddly, half of it is just a jumble of illegible symbols, but there are lines that are still legible, interspersed throughout it. Each readable line has a timestamp of some kind before it--mostly dates from a year back, and a couple from the current year, although...the last line at the very bottom seems to be dated twelve years ago? Odd.]

• Critical damage sustained; terminating all sy...>>
• High-level threat engaged, prepare to abort if o...>>
• The Alpha network is rejecting shutdown commands. Requestin...>>
• SYSTEM OVERRIDE. SYSTEM OVERRIDE. SYSTEM OVERR...>>
• We offer our sincere condolences. >>

[The arrows at the end of each line seem to be interactive buttons--probably to expand and read the rest of each error message properly.]

[electrostatics]

[ He takes in the information; he knows Megaman's had a few unfortunate incidents before, so the fact that there are so many error messages doesn't surprise him.

The details, though...

He selects the one that mentions the Alpha network first. ]

[recopy]

[The line blinks when it's selected--but, it never expands to view the rest of the text. Instead, abruptly, the status window shuts off entirely. --And then the larger computer screen behind it shuts off too, pale static winking off to blackness and silence. The darkness seem to fall completely over everything, snuffing out the outline of the plaza and the floor tiles, blackness so absolute that you couldn't see a thing no matter how hard you might strain--]

[recopy]

[And you don't know how long it's been, and you can't remember ever being this scared in your entire life.

"No!! Isn't there some way we can escape?" Lan's voice, close, sounding just as scared as you're feeling, and that's when you know you need to pull yourself together...at least a little bit. At least for him.

"There's only one way..." Your voice comes out so calm you almost startle yourself, really. "I'll need to build up all my remaining power, and overload. --I think that should create a hole in Alpha for a time. You can use that hole to escape..."

It's a terrifying thought, though. And after you'd both been so close, too--just reaching the end of the area, and ready to jack out, before that barely-alive piece of Alpha had just leaped up and swallowed up the both of you. You can still feel Alpha creeping in even now, too, eating into your code with whatever mindless motivation it has left, a sickly kind of trickling-in. It would be painfully slow, but in a few hours...no, but that doesn't matter now. Nothing else does. All that matters is getting Lan out of here okay.

"And what will you do after that?!" He already knows where this is going, of course, and you can feel the surge of dismay through the Full Synchro link still barely intact between the both of you. "I can't do that! I can't be separated from you!! We promised!! That we'll always be together!"

And in a way that hurts even more than Alpha ever could, because it's true--you both had promised. And you want always be together with Lan, to take care of him and watch over him, and that's what's driving the overwhelming fear through every corner of your processing right now--the thought that you won't be able to do that anymore. But it's too late now...]

[electrostatics]

[ The fear contained in the memory sinks in; it's overwhelming. He can't do anything much but stand there, totally transfixed.

He can't say he doesn't know what the future of this memory is going to hold, but...

"I can't do that! I can't be separated from you!! We promised!! That we'll always be together!"

That pains him, surprisingly. He can't help but draw parallels in his own faint consciousness, mostly swallowed up by experiencing this memory. Though he'd never had something like this happen...

His operator had always needed him. Had nobody else to support him.

So, it just makes this worse. ]

im so glad to have the most appropriate keywords for these things

[recopy]

[Yeah...hearing Lan like this is almost unbearable, but you know you can't let that stop you. You know that, if you do, it'll be the end for both of you, and all of this will have been for nothing. So you steel yourself to the idea, and you push forward with it. "Cut that out! Lan, these are my final words as--" Your real name. He needs that right now. (Something in the memory falters imperceptibly, and skips before the name quite filters through, but--) "Lan, you have to go on living, and have a future! I will...always be with you...."

"No--!" (Another tiny skip.) "I can't do that!" You can feel Lan crumpling under the weight of it, the idea...but you push forward to console him the best you can anyway. (The memory skips again, flickering, filtering--)

"--Meeting you, playing with you, fighting with you...every day I spent with you was a happy one. And finally I've been able to meet you face-to-face...I've never been happier...Lan, you will be able to make so many more people happy! I'm so proud to have--" (A longer flicker, this time.) But Lan's voice, cracking...

"But...but..."

"And now I must speak as Megaman." Because Lan needs that, too, and you know this. And it feels right--and you feel a bit less scared, now. "Just because I'm gone, don't you skip your homework! And learn how to wake up by yourself!"

"...I can't do it, Megaman. I'll do my homework! I'll wake up by myself! Just--don't leave me!"

That hurts too, the sound of it. But you think you're ready now. And, in a way beyond the link of Full Synchro, you know that Lan's ready too. "Lan, nothing could replace the days I spent with you. Thank you!"

You draw in every bit of courage you've ever had, and you reach into that part of you that all Navis have, the part that Navis only think of when the worst has come to pass and there's nothing else to be done--and you always were very strong, anyway, and you know this should be more than enough. You pull every last bit of that strength and that energy into yourself, and you let it go.

And it bursts and it hurts but Lan is gone. Safe.

"Goodbye, Lan!" You're not even sure if you said it out loud, the pain folding in on you and the blackness sinking into your thoughts--it's frightening. It will never not be frightening. But it's familiar, too, because you already know this feeling. You never forgot. And in the end....]

[recopy]

[The darkness falls away, as if your head's just been pulled out of an impossibly black water, and there's a pair of blue-gloved hands wrapped around Elecman's arm, tugging him back and away from the pale green status window sitting and glowing in the middle of the plaza.]

H-Hey, hey! You're--Elecman...are you okay?! [Megaman sounds alarmed and surprised in equal measures.]

[electrostatics]

[ The small part of his processes that aren't completely overwhelmed by the memory is confused - surely Megaman only has one name? What's this about a real name, anyway...?

But it's soon lost. Experiencing the memory like this means he has no room for anything else.

Oh, that's the kill switch says the tiny part of him that's still feeling like himself, distantly, before everything goes black and

Oh. He shakes his head, trying to clear his scattered processes. He realises he's on his knees - at some point he'd gone from standing to basically sitting without realising. ]

I'm-- fine. [ Now that he's been pulled out of the memory, the pain has faded, and he can think clearly again. ] That's...

A lot more than I thought it would be. [ He's not talking about Alpha, really, but...yikes, Megaman sure has had a lot of fatal errors?? ]

[recopy]

Ah, then, that's good...here-- [Still visibly concerned, Megaman does properly let go of Elecman's arm once the latter confirms that he's indeed okay anyway--in favor of offering a hand, instead, if Elecman wants to stand back up. Either way, though, he tilts his head a bit in slight confusion at the words.] A lot more--what, though...?

[electrostatics]

[ He waves a hand, indicating he can stand by himself, and gets to his feet. He's a little shaky, but that will go away. ]

You have a lot more fatal errors than I expected. [ His voice is wry. ] Though I guess you do get into a lot more scrapes than we ever did.